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About

Fairtrade

Ethical diamonds & gemstones

Clarity of cut. Clarity of colour. Clarity of conscience

We strive to ensure the most exceptional quality in terms of cut, clarity and colour of our gemstones. We also strive to achieve best practice for social & environmental issues in all elements of our business.

We have worked hard to ensure that each precious stone is ethically sourced, responsibly mined, and delivers economic justice to all the people involved in its extraction and production.

Ethical Diamonds

We offer two sources of ethical diamonds:

The Brilliant diamonds in Cred ethical engagement ring collections are from the Dominion mines in Canada. Each Canadian stone comes with a Country of Origin card, the GIA certification, and a unique number to allow you to trace your diamond back to the exact mine it came from. Dominion has received the ISO14001 which is the highest environmental standard available. This transparent sourcing is currently the best practice available for ethical diamonds in the industry. You can read the sustainable development reports for Dominion on their website.

Our more unique cuts of diamonds and the smaller diamonds such as in our eternity ring collections are from Namibia, mined under strict international environmental standards also with the ISO14001 certification. The mines have Namibian site-holders who invest in local communities, healthcare & infrastructure. With these diamonds you will receive certification of the colour & clarity of the stone. Whilst we offer these to our customers as best practice after Canadian diamonds we are still not happy about the traceability of these stones. We have endeavoured to select the best source but want to be transparent that these stones do not have a system to trace them that is 100% robust.

All our diamonds are certified as conflict-free. At Cred we fully support the Kimberley Process, the international government-led certification process that guarantees diamonds have not been used to fund armed conflict. Unfortunately the Kimberley Process doesn’t certify environmental and social standards and has recently been weakend by its acceptance of Zimbabwe as conflict free.

At CRED we seek to go further, our aim is to have a truly ‘pure’ diamond, certified Fairtrade, from artisanal sources, that will deliver real economic justice to those involved in its production. To that end, we are working with the Alliance for Responsible Mining (ARM) and other international partners, to make the dream of a Fairtrade Diamond a reality.

Gemstones

Here at CRED you will find a huge range of beautiful gemstones in an amazing array of colours that accentuate our fantastic jewellery. At this point, as with diamonds, there are no independently certified Fairtrade gemstones. So we partner with organisations all over the world to bring you the best quality stones, straight from source. We need to know where all our stones come from, and we have to be able to visit the mine, should we wish. We currently source coloured stones from Malawi, Tanzania, Brazil, Zambia, Australia, Namibia, Sri Lanka and Madagascar. You can see the origin of the stones for each product on the individual product description page.

We continue to look for ethical sources for our gemstones. And we continue to campaign, and to partner with international organisations. We look forward to the day when we can proudly offer certified fair trade rubies, amethyst, sapphires, emeralds, garnets, turquoise and opals along with our Fairtrade gold and Fairtrade silver.

Our Promise

As with everything we do here at CRED, we promise to tell you the truth, the ethical strengths and weaknesses of any product choice. We believe in transparency, even when it isn’t a selling point.

For information on how to care for you stone, please click on the link below